Every Wednesday. Without Fail. Words Will Be Hated.

Issue 16

Ah, doesn’t it warm the cockles to see people spending money on promotional activities during these hard times – then totally pissing on their message with a misplaced apostrophe that makes them look completely unprofessional? And surely it can’t be worse than with the old “it’s” versus “its” cliche of a mistake, especially on a massive hoarding round a building site…

Sigh. For the benefit of those trailing behind in the correct usage of the English language, particularly those employed in the creative industries, let’s go over this one more time. Now, keep up at the back:

It’s = contraction of it is; the apostrophe marks the omission of the letter “i” of “is”.
Its = possessive case, for example: “The car had a dent in the door. Its door was dented” – as in the door belonging to the car had been hit by some clumsy oaf with a supermarket trolley or, depending on the size of the dent, perhaps even another car.

So just remember this, kids: eschew obfuscation. Disambiguation is of the utmost importance. Apart from anything else, you’ll look less like a dick if you get it right.

Let us leave you with this illustration of how the incorrect use of grammar in written text can lead to all kinds of difficulties: capital letters are the difference between “helping your Uncle Jack off a horse” and “helping your uncle jack off a horse”. See where we’re coming from?

We Don’t Really Hate Words

We Hate Words is a weekly magazine about rubbish words.

Don't get us wrong; we don't hate all words. We're writers, so that would be foolhardy. However, there are some words that just stir up trouble. We're here to take those words outside into a dark back alley and rough them up a bit.

So if there's a word you hate, tell us. Think of us as your therapist. We will listen.

Who Are These Darn Word-haters?

Sarah-Clare Conlon is an editor, writer and adventuress. She writes arts blog Words & Fixtures and saucy short stories. She foolishly put herself forward to edit this site. You can stalk her on Twitter via @wordsnfixtures.

Benjamin Judge is the founder of We Hate Words. He abandoned it on the edge of the city in a tattered fruit box. He hears rumours about how it is under new management, but he pays little attention to rumours.

Clare and Ben are two of the five people behind the Flash Mob Writing Competition & Literary Salon and the FlashTag anthology Quickies: Short Stories For Adults, featuring flash fiction from the likes of David Gaffney, Emma Jane Unsworth, Chris Killen, Socrates Adams and Tania Hershman.

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